Tao Lin on Taipei

He’s not the typical hyphenated American who comes to Taiwan seeking his roots

By Enru Lin / Staff reporter

Lin, when asked to talk about his relationship with Taiwan or his parents in Taiwan, defers to artifacts.

In an e-mail he sends this: an Instagram of an e-mail with a screen grab of a cable news program of a deer tangled in a wooden chair. In Taipei, his father had seen the deer on the news and had photographed it for Lin, who tells me, “My father sends me very funny e-mails sometimes.”

There is no other attempt at narrative, and the news caption in the Instagram is far too blurry to read. A bit like Lin, the deer has been lifted and re-contextualized again and again, only to pop up here, indecipherable, feeling free to exist and not signify a thing.